Timon. A Satyr

	A. What, Timon, does old age begin t’approach
	That thus thou droop’st under a night’s debauch?
	Hast thou lost deep to needy rogues on tick
	Who ne’er could pay, and must be paid next week?
5	TIMON Neither, alas, but a dull dining sot
	Seized me i’th’ Mall, who just my name had got;
	He runs upon me, cries, ’Dear rogue, I’m thine,
	With me some wits of thy acquaintance dine.’
	I tell him I’m engaged, but as a whore
10	With modesty enslaves her spark the more,
	The longer I denied, the more he pressed.
	At last I ev’n consent to be his guest.
	He takes me in his coach and, as we go,
	Pulls out a libel of a sheet or two,
15	Insipid as the praise of pious queens
	Or Shadwell’s unassisted former scenes,
	Which he admired and praised at every line.
	At last it was so sharp it must be mine.
	I vowed I was no more a wit than he,
20	Unpractised and unblessed in poetry.
	A song to Phillis I perhaps might make,
	But never rhymed but for my pintle’s sake.
	I envied no man’s fortune nor his fame,
	Nor ever thought of a revenge so tame.
25	He knew my style, he swore, and ’twas in vain
	Thus to deny the issue of my brain.
	Choked with his flattery, I no answer make,
	But silent, leave him to his dear mistake,
	Which he by this had spread o’er the whole town
30	And me with an officious lie undone.
	Of a well-meaning fool I’m most afraid,
	Who sillily repeats what was well said.
	But this was not the worst. When he came home,
	He asked, ’Are Sedley, Buckhurst, Savile come?’
35	No, but there were above Halfwit and Huff,
	Kickum and Dingboy. ’Oh, ’tis well enough.
	They’re all brave fellows,’ cries mine host, ’Let’s dine,
	I long to have my belly full of wine.
	They will both write and fight, I dare assure you,
40	They’re men tarn Marte quammercurio.’
	I saw my error, but ’twas now too late:
	No means nor hopes appear of a retreat.
	Well, we salute, and each man takes his seat.
	’Boy,’ says my sot, ’is my wife ready yet?’
45	A wife, good gods! a fop and bullies too!
	For one poor meal what must I undergo?
	In comes my lady straight; she had been fair,
	Fit to give love and to prevent despair,
	But age, beauty’s incurable disease,
50	Had left her more desire than power to please.
	As cocks will strike although their spurs be gone,
	She with her old blear eyes to smite begun.
	Though nothing else, she (in despite of time)
	Preserved the affectation of her prime:
55	However you begun, she brought in love
	And hardly from that subject would remove.
	We chanced to speak of the French king’s success;
	My lady wondered much how heaven could bless
	A man that loved two women at one time,
60	But more how he to them excused his crime.
	She asked Huff if love’s flame he never felt.
	He answered bluntly, ’Do you think I’m gelt?’
	She at his plainness smiled, then turned to me,
	’Love in young minds precedes ev’n poetry.
65	You to that passion can no stranger be,
	But wits are given to inconstancy.’
	She had run on, I think, till now, but meat
	Came up, and suddenly she took her seat.
	I thought the dinner would make some amends,
70	When my good host cries out, ’You’re all my friends,
	Our own plain fare and the best tierce the Bull
	Affords I’ll give you and your bellies full.
	As for French kickshaws, sillery, and champagne,
	Ragouts and fricassees, in troth, we’ve none.’
75	’Here’s a good dinner towards,’ thought I, when straight
	Up comes a piece of beef, full horseman’s weight,
	Hard as the arse of Moseley, under which,
	The coachman sweats as ridden by a witch,
	A dish of carrots, each of them as long
80	As tool that to fair countess did belong,
	Which her small pillow could not so well hide
	But visitors his flaming head espied.
	Pig, goose, and capon followed in the rear,
	With all that country bumpkins call good cheer,
85	Served up with sauces, all of ’eighty-eight,
	When our tough youth wrestled and threw the weight.
	And now the bottle briskly flies about,
	Instead of ice, wrapped up in a wet clout.
	A brimmer follows the third bit we eat,
90	Small beer becomes our drink and wine our meat.
	The table was so large that in less space
	A man might, safe, six old Italians place:
	Each man had as much room as Porter, Blunt,
	Or Harris had in Cullen’s bushel cunt.
95	And now the wine began to work. Mine host
	Had been a colonel; we must hear him boast,
	Not of towns won, but an estate he lost
	For the King’s service, which indeed he spent
	Whoring and drinking, but with good intent.
100	He talked much of a plot, and money lent
	The King in Cromwell’s time. My lady, she
	Complained our love was coarse, our poetry
	Unfit for modest ears; small whores and players
	Were of our hare-brained youth the only cares,
105	Who were too wild for any virtuous league,
	Too rotten to consummate the intrigue.
	Falkland she praised, and Suckling’s easy pen,
	And seemed to taste their former parts again.
	Mine host drinks to the best in Christendom,
110	And decently my lady quits the room.
	Left to ourselves, of several things we prate,
	Some regulate the stage and some the state.
	Halfwit cries up my lord of Orrery,
	’Ah, how well Mustapha and Zanger die!
115	His sense so little forced that by one line
	You may the other easily divine:
	And which is worse, if any worse can be,
	He never said one word of it to me.
	There’s fine poetry! You’d swear ’twere prose,
120	So little on the sense the rhymes impose.’
	’Damn me!’ says Dingboy, ’In my mind, God’s wounds,
	Etherege writes airy songs and soft lampoons
	The best of any man; as for your nouns,
	Grammar, and rules of art, he knows ’em not,
125	Yet writ two talking plays without one plot.’
	Huff was for Settle, andMoroccopraised,
	Said rumbling words, like drums, his courage raised:
	Whose broad-built bulks the boist’rous billows bear,
	Soft and Sale, Mogador, Oran,
130	The famed Arzile, Alcazar, Tetuan.
	’Was ever braver language writ by man?’
	Kickum for Crowne declared, said in romance
	He had outdone the very wits of France:
	’Witness Pandion and his Charles the Eight,
135	Where a young monarch, careless of his fate,
	Though foreign troops and rebels shock his state,
	Complains another sight afflicts him more, Viz.
	The queen’s galleys rowing from the shore,
	Fitting their oars and tackling to be gone,
140	Whilst sporting waves smiled on the rising sun.
	"Waves smiling on the sun!" I’m sure that’s new,
	And ’twas well thought on, give the Devil his due.’
	Mine host, who had said nothing in an hour,
	Rose up and praisedThe Indian Emperour:
145	As if our old world modestly withdrew,
	And here in private had brought forth a new.
	’There are two lines! Who but he durst presume
	To make th’ old world a new withdrawing room,
	Where of another world she’s brought to bed!
150	What a brave midwife is a laureate’s head!
	But pox of all these scribblers. What d’you think,
	Will Souches this year any champagne drink?
	Will Turenne fight him?’ ’Without doubt,’ says Huff,
	’When they two meet, their meeting will be rough.’
155	’Damn me!’ says Dingboy, ’The French cowards are;
	They pay, but th’ English, Scots, and Swiss make war.
	In gaudy troops at a review they shine,
	But dare not with the Germans battle join.
	What now appears like courage, is not so;
160	’Tis a short pride which from success does grow.
	On their first blow they’ll shrink into those fears
	They showed at Crécy, Agincourt, Poitiers.
	Their loss was infamous; honour so stained
	Is by a nation not to be regained.’
165	’What they were then, I know not, now they’re brave.
	He that denies it lies and is a slave,’
	Says Huff and frowned. Says Dingboy, ’That do I!’
	And at that word at t’other’s head let fly
	A greasy plate, when suddenly they all
170	Together by the ears in parties fall.
	Halfwit with Dingboy joins, Kickum with Huff.
	Their swords were safe, and so we let them cuff
	Till they, mine host, and I had all enough.
	Their rage once over, they begin to treat,
175	And six fresh bottles must the peace complete.
	I ran downstairs with a vow nevermore
	To drink beer-glass and hear the hectors roar.